Final paper assignment

Due dates

To bring JOUR 366 Online Journalism to a close, I'd like you to pick a topic that we've explored and find out more about it to write your final paper. We have covered a lot of ground so far this semester. We've looked at the influence of new technology on:

I want you to return to one of these general areas and find a specific topic to write about. The result should be an in-depth research paper on a class-related topic of your choosing, using a variety of outside sources that are properly cited.

Are you most interested in legal issues? You can find another relevant legal topic to research and pursue, or do some digging for a closer look at an issue we've only touched on. Are you more interested in design? We looked at online newspaper design when we critiqued the different online newspapers, but are there other design topics you would like to explore?

I would like you to choose a topic that is NOT just an extension of a topic you already covered in one of your earlier papers, unless you can propose to me how you will write about it in a completely new way so that the new paper bears little resemblance to your previous effort.

This paper should take an in-depth look at a topic of your choosing. Identify your question or topic. You might find some good ideas at the Online Journalism Review site, the Cyberjournalist site or the Poynter site. You can stray a little from strictly journalistic topics, if you want. Maybe you'd like to write more about blogs. Or the online free speech issues we've explored. Or intellectual property -- DD has a good chapter on that issue that we didn't really get to go into much.

I do want to know of and approve your topic. Please e-mail me your topic no later than Monday, April 20, and sooner if you can. Let me know your topic after you've spent some time looking for sources and narrowing it down but before you have gotten too far into it, in case you're not on the right track. I also want to know if the topic is something you've written about before or are working on as part of your senior thesis or for another class.

Whatever your topic, you should spend more time on gathering support and information from outside sources than you did on your previous papers so that you have a good research foundation for your arguments and/or conclusions. This, more than the other papers you've written so far, is a RESEARCH paper. The paper should be at least 12 pages double-spaced in 12-point New Times Roman type, not including the reference list. Your research should be in service of examining the issue in order to ANALYZE the issue and come to some conclusion(s) about it -- this is not just a report on a topic, it's a scholarly examination of it with your own analysis and thoughts.

Citation and plagiarism

You MUST properly cite your sources. Cite references in parentheses within the text of your paper and include a full bibliography of sources used at the end. Note what citation style you are using on the first page.

Plagiarism: Remember that anything you get from another source must be cited, whether it's a quotation or an idea. If you use someone's idea, be sure to credit it. You must also put it completely into your own words or use quotes. (It's not enough just to change a few of the words in paraphrasing.)

**Plagiarism also includes self-plagiarism. If you are working on a similar senior thesis or have written about similar topics in other classes, you must speak to me about using that work in this class.**

Even one instance of plagiarism in an assignment for this class will result in a lower grade, an F for the assignment or referral to the Lehigh judicial system. I take plagiarism very seriously; I've referred students in this class to the judicial system before and I'll do it again. If you have ANY questions about proper citation, ask me BEFORE you turn in your paper.

Submitting your paper

Upload your paper to Turnitin on Blackboard as usual before the deadline. Remember to give yourself time to check for plagiarism using Turnitin if you want to; at 11:59 p.m. on May 4 I will expect the paper I download to be plagiarism-free. I will not be able to accommodate requests for extensions, so please plan to get it done on time.

This paper counts for 25 percent of your overall grade. If you need to review the grading percentages, see the grading page.

Due dates

E-mail me if you have any questions.

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